The Thai flag has been in use for 100 years today
The Thai flag, the Thong Trairong, has been in use for exactly 28 years today, September 100. The national flag of Thailand consists of five horizontal stripes of red, white, blue, white and red.
The middle blue strip is twice as wide as the other four. The three colors red, white and blue successively symbolize the nation, the religion and the king. The flag was officially adopted on September 28, 1917. The Thai name for the flag is ธงไตรรงค์ (Thong Trairong), which means tricolor flag, but few know the history and know that the designer of this flag was King Rama VI.
History
It is believed that Siam had no national flag until its ruler King Narai in the 17th century. The country started it when a ship from France hoisted the French flag at a fort in Bangkok and waited for an answer with the Siamese flag. There was no flag, so the leaders of the fort used a red piece of cloth to represent the flag. So that became the first national flag of Siam. The red flag was modified several times during the Chakri dynasty era.
According to some sources, various symbols were later placed on the red flag, such as a white wheel (the so-called chakra, a Buddhist symbol), a white circle with a sun in it, or a white elephant in a chakra. However, the use of all these flags was not official.
The first official flag was adopted in 1855 by King Rama IV. This flag showed a white elephant (a royal symbol) on a red background. In 1916 the design was changed to the current flag, but with a red instead of a blue center band. The story goes that this flag was introduced because King Rama VI once saw the flag with the elephant hanging on its head when visiting a flooded area, which he saw as a humiliation. To prevent this, he designed the symmetrical red-white-red-white-red flag.
The flag adopted in 1916 was changed again in 1917: the red band was replaced by a blue one. According to some sources, this happened because blue is the color of Friday, the day Rama VI was born.
Largest Thai flag
To mark the 100th anniversary of the Thai flag, Thailand's largest flag was unfurled on a soccer field at Phitsanulok University on the morning of September 28. The flag measures 40 by 60 meters, weighs 600 kilos and it took 300 people to fully unfold the flag. The flag will later hang from a 189-meter high flagpole in Chiang Saen, a district in Chang Rai province. It should symbolize national unity there as a landmark.
Let me have thought that they copied it from the Netherlands. They only prevented the problem of placing it upside down by making it red white blue white red. And the same on the head. So can never go wrong.
According to tradition, King Rama VI was annoyed by the fact that he saw the Thai flag hanging upside down several times, which is why he designed a flag that always hangs well.
Another motive has been mentioned behind the 1917 amendment, during World War I.
Siam, always wanting to be on the winning side, eventually sought to join the
Allies: Great Britain – France – Russia – USA, whose colors were all red-white-blue.
“It looked so good!”
Simply sew 2 Dutch flags together upside down
This is how I see the Thai flag and reminds me twice of 'home'
Remember to stand when the flag is raised and the national anthem is played. If you don't, you will be punished, even if the punishment is often conditional. As guests in this country, we must respect Thai customs and customs.
We even know the red, white and blue in the Netherlands.
They once told me that this once originated with the tax authorities.
Blue represents the color of the tax assessment envelope, which is well known to many.
White represents the frightened complexion of your face when the assessment letter arrives in your mailbox.
Red represents the complexion of your face of anger after reading the height of the attack.
Jan Beute.